India. It was in the British's best interests to keep Iran safe from complete domination by the Russians. This tension eventually led to the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907 which divided Iran up the middle, allowing Russia to have access to its favored territory, the British to theirs and the Iranians to have a miserly middle portion (Banani 8).
Banani's eloquence is exhibited with the parable he uses to frame his concluding chapter. With this fable, Banani suggests that Iranian culture has been threatened at the seams by its amazingly fast assimilation of modern culture. Iran must be careful that as a crow it does not seek to mimic the gait of the graceful partridge. What will happen to the bird is that he will forget how to walk as the crow and be unable to walk as the partridge (Banani 146). Iran must in recovering from the onslaught of perhaps too rapid a process of modernization return to its own roots and remember its own identity. Banani argues that "what is needed is nothing short of a rebirth of spiritual values that once animated both the East and the West" (Banani 159). Banani
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